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User blog:RoninTheMasterless/Leviathan's Creed
The Shifting Sands of Time After completing The Season of Infamy missions for Arkham Knight, I've had the idea of rebuilding Leviathan with more of the League of Shadows/Raʾs al-Ġūl lore. I want to incorporate the Assassins Creedish look of the Arkhamverse League of Shadows, as well as lightly rebrand Assassin's Creed, more like the inspiration for the Assassins: The Ḥashshāshīn. This move might seem less original, since Wei Lǐ is a somewhat Sun Tzu/Confucious combo with Vandal Savage and Raʾs Sl Ġūl thrown in, but fear not, as Weimin Sui will still be created as a foil to this Raʾs al-Ġūl of mine (Who will most likely not be named Raʾs Al Ġūl), and somewhat prophetic character to Knight Owl. However this raises another fork in the road: When should Weimin be born? There is the initial plan I had when he and Wei Lǐ were going to be contemporaries. Weimin would be born during the Warring States period Chinese history (475 - 221 BCE), but since this Raʾs Al Ġūl will be Third Crusade (1189-1192 CE), this would mean Weimin long predates Raʾs al-Ġūl, meaning the "Lazarus" Pits must be located and found in different places at different times, which may be too much disbelief to suspend. This could be a cool narrative device though, as Weimin remaining steadfast in his ethics while Raʾs al-Ġūl's erode over the centuries could be that much more potent if the reader knows that time does not necessarily corrupt a person's principles, but Knight Owl will eventually prove this anyway when immortality is force upon him, so that might be a useless lesson, or it could soften the blow of being immortal for Knight Owl when it happens. If I want to make Weimin younger, I have two options worth considering: The Song Dynasty (960-1279) and the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). These options are open to me, as Weimin could live for a few hundred years and die long before Knight Owl is born, and philosophy had particularly interesting stories around this time. In philosophy, Chinese Buddhism had waned in influence but it retained its hold on the arts and on the charities of monasteries. Buddhism had a profound influence upon the budding movement of Neo-Confucianism, led by Cheng Yi (1033–1107) and Zhu Xi (1130–1200). Mahayana Buddhism influenced Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi through its concept of ethical universalism. Buddhism's continuing influence can be seen in painted artwork such as Lin Tinggui's Luohan Laundering. However, the ideology was highly criticized and even scorned by some. The statesman and historian Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) called the religion a "curse" that could only be remedied by uprooting it from Chinese culture and replacing it with Confucian discourse: if I select this choice, Weimin would agree with Xiu and join Leviathan at his most radical, but over time realize that a true Confucian should not resort to cruelty, and incorprate before-mentioned ethical universalism at his philosophical maturity. During the Ming dynasty, the Neo-Confucian doctrines of the Song scholar Zhu Xi were embraced by the court and the Chinese literati at large, although the direct line of his school was destroyed by the Yongle Emperor's extermination of the ten degrees of kinship of Fang Xiaoru in 1402. The Ming scholar most influential upon subsequent generations, however, was Wang Yangming (1472–1529), whose teachings were attacked in his own time for their similarity to Chan Buddhism. Building upon Zhu Xi's concept of the "extension of knowledge" (理學 or 格物致知), gaining understanding through careful and rational investigation of things and events, Wang argued that universal concepts would appear in the minds of anyone. Therefore, he claimed that anyone – no matter their pedigree or education – could become as wise as Confucius and Mencius had been and that their writings were not sources of truth but merely guides which might have flaws when carefully examined. A peasant with a great deal of experience and intelligence would then be wiser than an official who had memorized the Classics but not experienced the real world. Weimin would be said peasant with experience and intelligence that Raʾs al-Ġūl decides to make a protege out of. However the Warring States period has some interesting philosphy as well, in the illustrative example of Mengzi (372 – 289 BCE; alt. 385 – 303/302 BCE), Gaozi (420-350 BCE), and Xunzi (310 – c. 235 BCE, alt. c. 314 – c. 217 BCE). These men argued on the ethical nature of humans: Menzi believed to be good, Xunzi believed to be evil but trainable, and Gaozi believed it to be neither/both (full disclosure: We have no works of Gaozi, all we know of Gaozi's thought comes from the eponymous chapter in Mengzi's work). Weimin would either be a student of Gaozi from the start, or he would be undecided, and come to the conculsion that Gaozi was on to something in the year of his death, centuries after said philosophers' deaths. What about Raish? Since Assassins Creed is my favorite of the standalone Assassins Creed games (storywise), my Raʾs Al Ġūl will be an English crusader during the Thrid Crusade, also known as the Kings Crusade (1189-1192). Another combatant in the Crusade was Frenchmen and Order of Purity founder: Dumas. Ras will eventually encounter the Ḥashshāshīn (possible sometime before/during/after the Battle of Arsuf). Ras will kill one of their finest assassins almost with ease at some point and instead of killing him, their leader, Rashid ad-Din Sinan (aka Vetulus de Montanis, derived from the Arabic title Shaykh al Jabal (شيخ الجبل), which means "wise man or elder of the mountain") offers this Ras the chance to convert and fight with them. Seeing an opprotunity, he accepted and fairly quickly rose through the ranks. By the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204), This Ras will become Al Mualim (The Mentor), and change the Ḥashshāshīn's foundation as a religious order, to a secular organization driven to acheive global peace, under the new name: Leviathan. What's in a Name? As you can now see, the Ras Al Ghul name for my Ras Al Ghul is Al Mualim, which means "The Mentor." I like it's greater surface simplicity in meaning, after all, in general everyone knows what a mentor is, but what the fuck is a Demon's Head and why would anyone with such a name consider themselves "a realist at least, and a futurist at best." That sounds more like what a teacher might say when you think about it (certaintly not a Demon's Head). You can also see how a warped ethical and logical mind might see how being a Mentor would extend to the world, and then further extend to would be world cleanser. As for the English name he would have had before Leviathan, I'm not sure what to do, as part of me wants to find a DC character that I could reference (e.g. Jason Blood, Edmund Dorrance, James Craddock), and another part of me wants to create a symbolic name that screams "I'm going to be a villain" name (e.g. ... Well let's be real Jason Blood). Will he be Jason Blood? I really don't like the Jason Blood name. It's so Evil McBadguy of Villainton, Evilville. However, this Ras will be from Norwich, as Jason Blood is in the comics. He may also be named Jason, since it means "healer," a very apt name for him. I think I've settled on Richard Ichabod Blood/Al Mualim. The Kids A focal point in the League of Shadows' lore is Raʾs Al Ġūl's children, most notably two daughters: Talia and Nyssa. At the moment I'm not sure what to do with Talia, but I do think that one daughter should be almost as zealous as her father, and a black sheep that's easily the most reasonable (whether that makes her genuinely reasonable or not is up for debate). Nyssa will remain largely unchanged. In fact her name will remain Nyssa, without the Al Ghul or Raatko surname, and I'll probably go with Zarov. The Batman of Earth-53, Knight Owl, will subvert the mainstream DC story arc of having Batman (strangely) fall in love with the zealot, by having Knight Owl and Nyssa have the romantic tensions, although neither would say they love each other: they respect each other and find each other attractive. Gallery Al Mualim E-53.jpg|Al Mualim on Lazarus. SD Shiva E-53.jpg|Shiva is the biological daughter of Al Mualim, but she was raised Sandra Ducard by world renowned mercenary, and one time heir of Al Mualim, Henri Ducard. She may or may not also be the direct descendant of Weimin Sui, in a sort of humanist twist on the story of Jesus. She grows to believe herself a daughter of the Mentor in every sense of the word and leaves the only father she ever knew to be Leviathan's greatest assassin, however her love of Knight Owl and her father proved she was more than her biology. Category:Blog posts Category:Created by RoninTheMasterless Category:RoninTheMasterless' Off My Mind Blogs Category:ME-1